[Etoys] Animations in Squeak/Scratch and Flash

[Yoshiki Ohshima]

> To give you an idea of the kind work Phi does, take a look at this. If anyone 
> knows of example animations made with eToys that look as good as what Phi did 
> here, please let us know."
> 
> reminded me of my wish that Squeak be used instead of Flash :) in addition to 
> it being so nice for exploring..
> 
> That aside, I think the person who made the comment is right - I do not think 
> Squeak can be used to create animations shown in there, at least I do not 
> know how to. Does anyone have enough experience with Scratch to comment that 
> perhaps Scratch could be used to create animations similar to those with 
> equivalent or lower effort?

  Either in Etoys or Scratch, a script for that kind of animation
would look like a long, serial chain of commands, and would not be too
pleasant to edit or make.

  There have been discussions to make a tool for making timeline-based
animations.  One could imagine to start from something that
EventTheatre offers (press "Record" in EV, do something, hit escape
key and press the double-ring button).

  However, filling details that makes such a tool (i.e., an animation
making tool) useful would require a lot of work.  Frame-based
animation in Etoys doesn't really scale, and adjusting the rotation
centers of frames to make the animation look right is hard, etc.
Also, our 2D scaling and rotation isn't fast enough to show that on
XO.

  BTW, the "LearniT" animations are fun to watch and have hip style,
but to see that some people think they are good for "education"
(implies that they are informative and teaching something) gives me a
strange impression.  "How the mesh network works?" and the animation
essentially tells you that "the middle man relays".  Do you need one
minute animation to convey the four words idea?

-- Yoshiki